Japan to invest in AI matchmaking to boost flagging birth rate
Japan is calling on tech engineering to spark romance among its single citizens. A cabinet official said on Monday, Dec. 7, that the program is set to boost the country’s tumbling birth rate over the past years.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s government is planning to back local authorities that run matchmaking programs with a budget of 2 billion yen (P923 million) in the next fiscal year, he added.
According to the Japan Times, nearly half of Japan’s 47 prefectures offer matchmaking services and some of them have already introduced AI systems. But the existing technology could only gather basic information, such as income and age, and produces a result only if there is an exact match.
The funding will then allow authorities to create more costly and complex systems that, according to BBC, would also take into account the participants’ behavioral factors such as hobbies and values.
The cabinet official clarified that although there is no assurance that the new AI technology will conjure feelings of love or admiration for another person, it can put together a wider and smarter range of potential suitors.
“We are especially planning to offer subsidies to local governments operating or starting up matchmaking projects that use AI,” the official said. “We hope this support will help reverse the decline in the nation’s birth rate.”
In 2019, the fertility rate of Japanese women totaled 1.36. It is one of the world’s lowest and a far cry from the overall fertility rate of 2.1 needed to stabilize a population. Additionally, the number of babies born in Japan that year fell to a record low of 865,000.
A study by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation showed that Japan’s population peaked at 128 million in 2017. However, its declining fertility rate is projected to shrink the country's population to half or around 53 million by 2100.
Its rapidly aging population is likewise putting Japanese policymakers at their wit's end, as they constantly sketch out solutions on how a decreasing labor force can support the country’s increasing expenses.